Ok so im in the process of building my first computer and need some opinions of what dvd burner to go with. Ive read all the reviews and definitely want a Pioneer but i think ive fried my brain with all the information ive just read so am sort of more confused than when i first started.

Things you need to know:Im not particularly computer savvy so please keep it simple.

Thing im looking for in a burner:

PioneerInternalSATADual Layer read and writable if possibleReliablealso want it blackIt can have Lightscribe but it doesnt bother me either way as long as its reliable

So far ive looked at the following models: 115, 116, 117, 215, 216 and just need someone with a bit of experience to lead me in the right direction.

If you require a SATA drive, you will need to be looking at the 21x series of drives.

Pioneers drives do not come with Lightscribe features, so that one's out of the window. Internal - Check, DL read and write - Check. Black - As long as you get the BK (Black) Variant - Check.

Now the 215 is considered a better burner (slightly) than a 216, but the 216 gives good results anyway. A firmware upgrade in the future for the 216 could improve things. The 215 is discontinued, so you would be buying old stock, the 216 is still in good supply. I don't think the replacement 217 drive is on the market yet, so too early to tell with that, but the 117 (The ATA variant) looks pretty good from the scans we have so far.

Do you need DVD-RAM write compatability? If you do, keep away from the D versions of the drive (e.g. 216D) as these do not have support of DVD RAM writing out of the box. (They can be crossflashed to enable RAM support, but thats another story!)